If you’re not on board with using canned soup in your cooking, or just find it too salty, you can always make homemade cheese sauce and substitute about a cup and a quarter of that. If your brunch guests are all adults, you might try using cheese and broccoli soup — I don’t recommend that for kids, but for them or adults you can top the filling with thin slices of tomato before you bake it.
One of the things I like about this kind of crust is that the melted butter makes it much easier to mix up. No beating with the electric mixer till the bread box falls open. No figuring out if your dough is at the crumb or the cornmeal stage. Just melt, mix, and spread.
On a mostly unrelated note: Something else you can make with an egg and a cup of flour, plus a tiny bit of oil and water, is emergency lasagna, enough for one more layer if you don’t have enough of the store-bought fresh or oven-ready stuff. Just mix the ingredients till smooth, separate into three pieces, and roll them flat with a rolling pin. No need to boil. Of course, they won’t have the fancy ruffled edges of commercial lasagna, but use them for the bottom layer and no one will notice.
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- ½ cup butter
- Dash of salt (optional, especially if you’re using salted butter)
- 1 can condensed cheese soup, undiluted
- 2 large eggs
- Melt the butter.
- Mix it with the flour (and salt, if you want) till smooth.
- Spread the mixture in a greased 8 x 8 square pan.
- Bake at 350℉ till edges are slightly browned, about 15 minutes.
- Meanwhile, beat the eggs thoroughly and blend the soup with them.
- When crust is ready, pull out the oven rack (or just take the pan out on top of the stove) and carefully pour in the egg and soup mixture.
- Bake until the filling is set, about 15 to 20 more minutes.
- Cool and cut into 16 squares.
- Serve warm or cold.
